Salina: Group wants fluoride removed from Salina water supply

Kids play in it. People drink it. Experts say it prevents cavities. Fluoridated water runs through the pipes in communities across the country. Esther McClure says she’s been drinking it most of her life.

“It helps your teeth,” McClure says.

But a group in Salina wants the city to stop adding fluoride to the water.

“It’s a neurotoxin,” says John Boesen of the group called, Salina Cares about Pure Water. “It’s corrosive acid and it’s not something that should be put in the water.”

As far as the specific health or environmental risks, the group admits the specifics are not clear. But they have joined a movement tha thas taken hold in some parts of the country–a movement that considers fluoride dangerous.

The City of Salina has been putting fluoride in its water supply for more than 40 years. The City Commission has no plans to take this issue up in any formal sense, however director of utilities Martha Trasker is collecting information on the subject.

“When you look at the American Dental Society, the information that’s been provided from EPA and Department of Health and Environment still strongly reccommend (fluoridating water),” Trasker says.

While it says overexposure to fluoride can be dangerous, the Kansas Health Institute says that “scientific evidence over the past 60 years supports community water fluoridation as both safe and effective in preventing cavities in children and adults.”

But Boesen and others in his group say the city has no business shoving it down people’s throats.